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Updated: May 27, 2025
Then we should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers Clark, who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of tattered and starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he never flinched, through barrens and icy floods to the conquest of Illinois for the United States. Though Cresap had rejected the role of "white leader," he did not escape the touch of infamy.
The next Indians who were attacked, fired back; one white man was wounded. Among the Indians killed in these two meetings was a relative of Logan. Captain Cresap started north to wipe out Chief Logan's camp. He well knew that as soon as the word of the killings reached the camp, trouble might break. On the way his heart failed him.
The earl then read it, in open council, to the whole backwoods army, including Cresap, Clark, and the other scouts. The speech, when read, proved to be no message of peace, nor an acknowledgment of defeat, but instead, a strangely pathetic recital of his wrongs, and a fierce and exulting justification of the vengeance he had taken.
In the same settlement lived Daniel Greathouse "a ruffian in human shape," and an enemy to all Indians. Greathouse, too, was inspired to "strike the post," in the worst Indian fashion. He gathered thirty-two whites, and hid them in Baker's house. He feared that the Logan camp had heard of the Cresap killings, so he crossed over the river, to investigate.
Logan accused Cresap of committing a murder which he had not committed. But, as we have already seen, Logan had made the same accusation in his unquestionably authentic letter, written previously; and many whites, as well as Indians, thought as Logan did. A Col. Benj. Wilson, who was with Dunmore's army, says that "he did not hear the charge preferred in Logan's speech against Captain Cresap."
Jefferson, thanks to a letter he received from Clark, must have known that Cresap had been accused wrongly; but he was irritated by the controversy, and characteristically refrained in any of his publications from doing justice to the slandered man's memory. A Mr.
Then Luther Martin, of Maryland, attacked its authenticity, partly because he was Cresap's son-in-law, and partly because he was a Federalist and a bitter opponent of Jefferson. Like all of his successors in the same line, he confused two entirely distinct things, viz., the justice of the charge against Cresap, and the authenticity of Logan's speech.
But they knew that Greathouse, not Cresap, had been the chief offender in the murder of Logan's family; and when the speech was read, Clark, turning round, jeered at and rallied Cresap as being so great a man that the Indians put every thing on his shoulders; whereat, Cresap, much angered, swore that he had a good mind to tomahawk Greathouse for the murder.
Logan never would believe but that Michael Cresap had killed the warriors and women at Yellow Creek. When Captain Cresap heard of this note, and that he was blamed, he said that he would like to sink his tomahawk in Daniel Greathouse's head! Chief Logan was not long in getting his thirteen scalps. "Now," he announced, "I am satisfied. My relations have been paid for. I will sit still."
He possessed high daring, unflinching courage, passions which he could not control, and a frame fitted to stand any strain of fatigue or hardship. He was a square-built, thick-set man, with high broad forehead, sandy hair, and unquailing blue eyes that looked out from under heavy, shaggy brows. Clark had taken part with Cresap in his assault upon the second party of Shawnees.
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